Nakuru Update #6
Saturday, March 15th
I apologize for not getting the above blog emailed. The system was down when I tried one day and it isn’t always convenient to get it done.
It is a very funny thing to say that it was another amazing two days (14 &15th) in the camp, when one is faced with so much misery.
We have been concentrating on three fronts
1) Buying and distributing foam mattresses and blankets for the elderly, the young mothers and the sickly, especially HIV/ Aids victims. Faith is a wonderful 18 yr old young lady volunteer, who is from Nakuru, and who started volunteering when the idp’s first started arriving in early Jan. She visits tent after tent verifying the individual requests for mattresses blankets etc. A Better World have been working with her since their arrival very early on in Jan. She does a great job.
2) Buying the materials and hiring the labour to build fuel efficient jekos.
3) Developing a trade school for the IDP’s, so that they can learn a trade like carpentry, masonry or tailoring, which will provide them an opportunity to earn a living when they eventually get settled some where. We have bought a lot of lumber and other supplies to start the school.
I must mention another of our great volunteers, Lona from Mikinduri, who is 20 yrs old, also a wonderful young lady. She has been trained by Karen to do the eye clinics. She has been handling the eye clinics since Karen and Greg departure, and has a great way with the clients.
One never knows what the next moment will bring. I had been asking Faith and Lona to keep an eye out for candidates who might need one of the two wheelchairs we took with us. Yesterday afternoon Faith took me to a tent to visit a 17 yr old girl who is quite mentally handicapped. She also has very limited use of her legs. It appears to be a severe case of polio. The best she can do is crawl around very slowly like a baby. She has a beautiful one yr old baby girl as a result of being raped. She lives with her mother in the tent, and hardly ever gets around because of the clay and dust. We had to lift her into the wheel chair. I have seldom been touched so deeply as that moment, when tears of joy flowed down her face, as a crowd of neighbours clapped for her. You can imagine how much her mother thanked us. The most beautiful part of this story is that as I was driving out of the camp about 15 minutes later, quite far from her tent, there she was being pushed around in her new wheelchair. Clarey Stubbert from Harding Med Supplies, who donates all the wheel chairs, truly made a life changing difference in that young lady’s life.
Sunday I plan to revisit this girl with one of the nurses to see if therapy might be helpful for her physical disability, if so, we will sponsor the cost of taking her to a very special hospital called Kajabi, near Nairobi.
I was walking thru one of the tent areas and noticed a small hunched over person, sort of shuffling along with a limp. As I drew closer to her from behind, I was shocked to see that her right leg was incredibly swollen from about the middle of her foot to above her knee. Her toes are normal size. It was not normal swelling, but rather appeared to be more like a very big growth of some sort. She also had a very bad case of curvature of the spine, the worst I have ever seen. When I found Faith, I asked if she knew of her. She confirmed that she knew her tent number. So we visited with her and her mother and one of the camp medical people. She is 13 yrs old, quite shy. Upon questioning, her mother informed us that when she was born, her leg was fatter than the other, and as she grew older, it had grown in size. She agreed to allow us to take them to Kajabi hospital as well. Perhaps there is something they can do for her back and her leg condition. As we assured the young girl that we would try to help her, a beautiful shy smile appeared. Please prey that something can be done to help her, otherwise she has a very long life to live in this condition.
Our work on the polytechnique school has been progressing well. On Friday morning, 18 young women showed up for their first day of class with Eunice. We don’t have all their tables finished yet, so they had to use another area. The carpenter class will have the tables finished by Mon afternoon, all nicely varnished.
The masonry people have built two more jekos. This time they were for an ngo called Action against Hunger. They run a feeding program for 500 children up to 5 yrs of age, They feed them twice a day. So these two jikoes will make a big diff to them not only in wasted, scarce wood, but also in reducing the smoke by a great amount. So in total, we have built 9 of them with four more to do on Monday, our last day at the camp.
Also on Monday, we are going to build an enclosure over and around the kitchen that feeds he feeds the 500 school kids, for which we built the gang of four jikos on wed. We are going to build it big enough to include an extra room for the volunteer teachers to have a place to escape from the class for a few minutes and also be able to store their supplies.
Our last day will be a very busy one. I have been invited to visit with the local president of Rotary in Nukuru to talk about a vision program. There will be lots to do, and things to clean up before departing.
Until next time,
From Camp Nakuru
Ted